Vertical Search - challenges and opportunities

Slideshow Transcript

1. Slide 1: Vertical Search: Challenges & Opportunities Graeme McCracken Chief Operating Officer, RB Search gmccracken@reedbusiness.com
2. Slide 2: Search: A growing market! • Forrester predicted $34b by 2010, we believe it will be closer to double this with at least $11b in B2B • 59% of dollars migrating from other media budgets (print, web display ads, shopping directories, email, direct marketing, etc) • 35% of user sessions initiated by a query, making site search the most used application on a typical web site • B2B site search success rate is only 58% • 30% of visitors abandon a site with each failed query • Industry/Vertical search typically yields a 30 – 60% increase in page views per year – 50% from new customers Google most used in B2B markets “What was the result of your online research?” I never found what I 8% Google 83% was looking for Researched online, 27% Yahoo! 8% purchased offline Researched and AlltheWeb 3% 37% purchased online MSN 2% Still researching 28%
3. Slide 3: The Fried Egg Model Addressed Market “Bonus” audience
4. Slide 4: It may feel safe….but for how long?
5. Slide 5: Frogs are SO! hot
6. Slide 6: Understand your market, content & search User Profiles: • Researchers • Buyers Researcher Domain queries • Browsers Focused vocabulary Initial broad queries Refinement • Researchers and buyers behave similarly, Queries in related domains as they are both goal-oriented. The system need to be designed with their needs in Browser mind Broad queries Generalize vocabulary • Browsers are ancillary and will benefit by Search Longer sessions proxy Platform Typical Searches: Buyer • Goal-oriented, precise Goal seeker Domain queries • Multi-term with no conjunctives Focused vocabulary • Most likely to include category or solution Specific queries Refinement domain terms Click-thrus • Refinement, sorting and filtering will be important aspects of the results UI • Users will rely heavily on system to “return the right thing” or to help them “find the right thing”
7. Slide 7: The problem with search today Impact 3. Searcher Frustration 4. Advertiser ROI Recall Precision Refinement • Breadth vs. Depth • Mention vs. About • Navigation • Context & Semantics • Noise & Spam • Mindset & Intention
8. Slide 8: The other problem with search – an inverse model The more relevant/targeted the advert….the less you pay
9. Slide 9: RB Search Zibb.com & Zibbsearch.nl Zibb on Demand 1. Build best in breed B2B Search 2. Build best in breed Vertical Search & Engine Widgets for all RB websites Technology Platform 2. Improve results and implement testing methodology 3. Develop UI and Usability competence 4. Continue to develop product
10. Slide 10: What does search do for us? • Taxonomy links all B2B content together • Crawl – RB proprietary plus B2B web content • Aggregate Content – a holistic design principle • User Interface/Branding Architecture • Not one site, but a multitude & powers all 900 websites and more • Benefits: Answering B2B queries; Web /Blog plus site search; Adsense for Search; Traffic Cascade to RB sites/CPM & CPC Revenue Fast pantone 144 The Search Engine Company Topic Taxonomy Content Indexing Product & Service Geographic Individual/ Taxonomy Ontology Taxonomy Position B2B Web Millions of B2B +5 million 3 million Millions of Over 2 billion Spec Sheets, News Articles companies Attendees & B2B Web Pages, Catalogs, Press Multiple 220k Products/ Exhibitors News & Blogs Releases, White Repositories Services Papers
11. Slide 11: What is the Value to the Consumer? From… ...To Content Source All the Web/Site Specific Industry Specific Search Failure Rate > 50% < 5% Relevance Broad and Arbitrary Contextual & Explainable Disambiguation None Navigation Productivity Gather Links Analyze Information Interaction Pull Push & Pull Perception No Alternative Useful
12. Slide 12: What is the Benefit to the Business? From… ...To Search Traffic (% of Total) 1% More than 10% Overall Traffic Impact Limited Source of Differentiation Revenue per Search $? $0.05 Other Monetization NA Incremental Maintenance & Support Site Specific Centralized & Dedicated Standards None Scale & Advantage Search Roadmap Not a Priority Competitive Advantage Sources: Outsell; Forrester
13. Slide 13: Zibb – branded vertical search
14. Slide 14: ZIbb – Better Answers by Market
15. Slide 15: Zibb On Demand – Beyond Search ! 112 ive ZoD’s driving 54% YOY increase in page impressions +70 live with News Feeds, Related Items, Infusion  Driven by 15 million ZoD/widget, 130 million queries  on sites that generate +50 million page impressions and more than 2 million direct searches per month per month  Growing at +30% per month Video & Part Searc
16. Slide 16: Domain Expertise – better answers Content Type – the web is a medium, not a type of content! • Disambiguation – did you want news/product/blog/catalog, etc? Market – you are special, so is the content within our index • Market specific, quality content – own your own index! Taxonomy, Ontology, Folksonomy – describe your market • Answers, not questions – lotus car or lotus position • Aboutness – Everything you ever wanted to know ‘about’ …… but were afraid to ask! – A specific zone for all our specialised users • RB Search classifies all our content by multiple taxonomies by Topic, Product, Company, Geography, Individual/Job Position • Web 2.0?……………. no more like Web 3.0 (the Semantic Version) …………………………………………………………..In short it is about Answers, not Questions!
17. Slide 17: You may think I am decoupled…and you would be right! XML XML XML
18. Slide 18: Raising the Sea Level – Reverse Thinking Yeserday Today EDN Flight Variety 950 websites ECN Powder Bulk Solids
19. Slide 19: Not a silver bullet – you only get one of those!
20. Slide 20: Then you get carried away
21. Slide 21: Key takeaways • Search fundamentally changes the game – both for internal and external content – Google proves this • You can exploit this to do internal and external developments faster, cheaper and better • Always choose the best product for that specific purpose, do not make do! Even second best costs you money and more importantly time • It is not cheap…..but as an infrastructure and game changer it is very reasonable • Business models are challenging and you need to be nimble in order to exploit opportunities • Apply standards/taxonomies globally, do not try to standardise systems globally - its quicker, better and simpler • Decouple, decouple, decouple….keeps it simple to manage, fast to integrate and incredibly flexible • It can power far more than you would ever believe possible - it breaks the RDBMS rules and can make you agile • It’s about speed and aggression – that is what drives innovation • ……..it is also a little frightening, as it breaks rules, challenges business and IT and liberates you
22. Slide 22: Questions